By the 11th century, Christianity was established in Sweden. Swedish Christians were given the ability to govern their own church affairs in The center of the Swedish church was Uppsala. The cathedral built there was constructed over a pagan holy site.
The old Norse religion was in decline, and to a significant degree, the Viking way of life along with it. Vikings spread their influence and way of life to many islands in Northern Europe in the 9th and 10th centuries.
These Scandinavian islands included those around present-day England and Scotland, as well as all the way west to Greenland. But wherever the Viking way of life spread, Christianity eventually followed. There was already some Christian influence on these islands, which made the faith less foreign to some. Yet there was still resistance, especially on the Orkneys. This led Tryggvason to force conversions and baptisms. Norwegians immigrated to Iceland in large numbers in the 10th century.
Missionaries were working on the island late in that century. As people began to convert, conflict arose with residents who resisted the new faith.
Compromises were made, which combined elements of each belief system. For example, some of the same people who were baptized Christians were still allowed to offer pagan sacrifices with little consequence. Paganism eventually waned in Iceland. Olaf Haraldsson provided the materials for the first church, a symbolic structure on the island. Teachers from mainland Europe trained people to be church leaders.
Though the population of Iceland at the time was less than 10, people — perhaps less than 5, — it was once Viking, but now the land had become Christianized. The presence of churches was one of the first visible signs of the changing religious landscape in Scandinavia. The first churches in the region, built in the 10th and 11th centuries, were constructed with wooden staves.
People used wood because it was available and because it was easy to carve. However, the wood itself did not last long. Since locals did not have a lot of experience working with stone in order to build a structure like a church, other European craftsmen were brought in to help. Early Vikings tended to cremate their dead along with their belongings, burying their ashes in an urn, and usually marking the spot with a mound of rocks….
Later the Vikings began to bury their dead along with such goods as tools, weapons and jewelry , and even in some cases with their ships and horses. As Christianity spread, however, the Vikings began to adopt the Christian practice of burial without goods. The spread of the new faith in northern Scandinavia was less successful than in south. A small number of people continued to practice the Norse religion. Sometimes Scandinavian Christians fought to defend themselves from raiding tribes, like the Slavs.
At other times, the new Christians went on the offensive. Some even traveled as far as the Holy Land fighting for their new church. Though the past could still be seen in the present, in any measurable way, the Christian era in Scandinavia was underway. Sometimes Christianity has supplanted cultures it has entered, destroying all traditions and erasing large portions of its history.
To what extent the Christian faith supplanted ancient Scandinavia , or assimilated with it, is debated. But the conversion itself was inevitable, desirable, and beneficial. On the other hand, because of the Crusades that followed, others would argue the region gaining greater peace is debatable. Nevertheless, Christianity would dominate the region for the next millennia.
It would not be until the late 20th century that the Christian religion would start to decline. Only time time will tell if that trend will continue and if Scandinavia transforms religiously once more. During the year or so he was in Iceland, he managed to convert some influential people. But Thangbrand killed a few people who had insulted him, and had to flee back to Norway to save his life. When Thangbrand told Olaf what had happened, and gave the opinion that converting Iceland would be quite a difficult task, Olaf flew into a rage and threatened violence against some Icelanders who were living in Norway.
A pair of Christian Icelanders, Gizurr the White and Hjalti Skeggjason, traveled to Norway and talked him out of his plan for vengeance. In return, they agreed to attempt to convert the entire island to the new faith. The pair went to the next meeting of the Althing the Icelandic governing assembly and presented the matter to the people.
This was in the year or The island was deeply divided by the matter, and the situation was growing tense. Thorgeirr Thorkelsson, the lawspeaker the head of the assembly and a pagan, was called upon to arbitrate the dispute.
He left the Althing for a day and a night, during which time he lay under his cloak, possibly undertaking a traditional pagan ritual to obtain visionary insight.
When Thorgeirr emerged in the morning, he proclaimed that if Iceland were to remain one country, it had to unite under one religion, and that religion had to be Christianity. Everyone therefore had to be baptized. However, those who wished to continue being pagans could do so privately. We have little basis for determining the historical accuracy of this story.
The historical record is unfortunately quiet on when and how the conversion of Sweden occurred. Paganism held out there for an especially long time compared to the rest of Scandinavia, but by the twelfth century, the country was mostly Christian. According to the eleventh-century historian Adam of Bremen, King Erik the Victorious, who ruled Sweden in the late tenth century, converted to Christianity but eventually fell back into paganism. Olaf seems to have founded a bishopric at Skara in western Sweden.
According to The Saga of Erik the Red , there were Christians among the people whom Erik the Red brought to Greenland to settle it in the late tenth century. He sailed to Greenland with a priest to convert the people. She refused to let Erik sleep in the same bed as she until he relented and accepted the new religion, which he eventually did. Adam of Bremen, writing in the s, corroborates the notion that Christianity had reached the Greenlanders and was making inroads among them by that time.
My list of The 10 Best Books on the Vikings will surely prove helpful to you. From Odin to Christ. In The Viking World. Edited by James Graham-Campbell. Christianisation and the Emergence of the Early Church in Scandinavia. Edited by Stefan Brink and Neil Price. One of these was Loki, who had three monstrous children by his giantess wife.
His daughter Hel became ruler of the underworld. One son, Jormunagund, was a serpent who grew so large that he stretched all the way around the earth. The other son was Fenris, a wolf so powerful that he terrified the gods until they tricked him into allowing himself to be tied up with a magical chain which bound him until the end of time.
It was believed that the world would end with the final battle of Ragnarok, between the gods and the giants. Loki and his children would take the side of the giants. Thor and Jormunagund, who maintained a long-running feud with each other, would kill each other, and Odin would be killed by the Fenris wolf, who would then be killed in turn.
A fire would sweep across the whole world, destroying both the gods and mankind. However, just enough members of both races would survive to start a new world. Silver 'St Peter' penny from York. Although Vikings often seem to have maintained their beliefs throughout the periods of their raiding, there was considerable pressure to convert to Christianity if they wished to have more peaceful relations with the Christians.
This could happen on a political level, as in the Treaty of Wedmore in The treaty bound the Viking leader Guthrum to accept Christianity, with Alfred of Wessex as his godfather, and Alfred in turn recognised Guthrum as the ruler of East Anglia. Another more or less formal convention applied to trade, since Christians were not really supposed to trade with pagans. Although a full conversion does not seem to have been demanded of all Scandinavian traders, the custom of 'primsigning' first-signing was introduced.
This was a halfway step, falling short of baptism, but indicating some willingness to accept Christianity, and this was often deemed to be enough to allow trading. Further pressure came as Viking raiders settled down alongside Christian neighbours. Although scholars disagree on exactly how extensive the Scandinavian settlement was in different parts of the British Isles, few people would now accept that the Vikings completely replaced the native population in any area.
In particular, the settlers often took native wives or at least partners , although some settlers apparently brought their families over from Scandinavia. The children of these mixed marriages would therefore grow up in partially Christian households, and might even be brought up as Christians. Further intermarriage, coupled with the influence of the Church, gradually brought about a complete conversion.
The peaceful co-existence of pagans and Christians is suggested by some of the coinage of Viking York. One coin type carries the name of St Peter, rather than the ruler.
This seems very obviously Christian, but on many of the coins, the final 'I' of 'PETRI' takes the form of Thor's hammer, and some of these coins also have a hammer on the reverse. These coins seem to carry a deliberate message that both paganism and Christianity were acceptable. Rune-stone from Jelling, showing the figure of Christ on the cross.
The Anglo-Saxon St Willibrord led a mission to Denmark in , but although he was well-received by the king, his mission had little effect. The Frankish St Ansgar led a second wave of missionary activity from the s onwards - with the support of the Frankish Emperor Louis the Pious. Ansgar and his followers established missions in both Denmark and Sweden, with the support of local rulers, but made little impact on the population as a whole. Archaeological evidence suggests that Christianity was adopted piecemeal in Norway, with settlements converting or not depending on whether the local chieftain converted.
The same idea can also be seen on a larger scale. In the mid-tenth century Hakon the Good of Norway, who had been fostered in England, tried to use his royal authority to establish Christianity.
However, when it became clear that this would lose him the support of pagan chieftains, he abandoned his attempts, and his Anglo-Saxon bishops were sent back to England.
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